The following relates generally to wireless communication, and more specifically to reference signal resource location techniques in wireless communications.
Wireless communications systems are widely deployed to provide various types of communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, and so on. These systems may be capable of supporting communication with multiple users by sharing the available system resources (e.g., time, frequency, and power). Examples of such multiple-access systems include code division multiple access (CDMA) systems, time division multiple access (TDMA) systems, frequency division multiple access (FDMA) systems, and orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) systems, (e.g., a Long Term Evolution (LTE) system, or a New Radio (NR) system). A wireless multiple-access communications system may include a number of base stations or access network nodes, each simultaneously supporting communication for multiple communication devices, which may be otherwise known as user equipment (UE).
In some wireless systems, devices (e.g., base stations and UEs) may communicate using directional transmissions (e.g., beams), in which beamforming may be applied using multiple antenna elements to provide a beam in a particular direction. In some cases, a base station may be unaware of a particular location of a UE, such as when a gap in communications occurs while a UE is moving. When a first device does not know the direction in which to transmit to a second device, the first device may transmit to the second device by sweeping through a set of beams focused in different directions, and transmitting a duplicative signal or information on each of the beams. Alternatively, the first device may transmit on one or a few beams, and the second device may sweep through a set of beams in an attempt to locate the beam or beams on which the first device is transmitting. In some cases, both the first device and the second device may sweep through a set of beams to transmit and receive.